George
W. Bushs defenders were still fuming over Sen. Ted Kennedy labeling the Iraq
War Bushs Vietnam when the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq suffered what might be
called Bushs Tet.

Like the Vietcong-North Vietnamese offensive during the Tet
holiday in 1968, this April's Iraqi uprising in both Sunni and Shiite regions
has altered the perception of the reality on the ground. Just as the Tet
offensive shattered the light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel myth in Vietnam, the
Iraqi uprising has destroyed any realistic prospect that the Bush
administrations wishful thinking about Iraq might somehow come true.

The uprising  from the street-to-street fighting in the
Sunni city of Fallujah to the running battles with Moktada al-Sadrs militia
forces in Shiite strongholds in the south  means that the political side of the
Iraq War is lost and that means the war itself is effectively lost. The only big
questions left are how many more soldiers and civilians will die  and how many
more angry young Islamic radicals will be driven into the arms of al-Qaeda.

But the immediate question in Washington is whether the
Bush administration and its legions of defenders will come to grips with this
unpleasant reality on the ground. As in Vietnam, the temptation is to deny the
reality and to continue the carnage rather than to make the hard decisions that
would reverse course, save lives and minimize the strategic damage to the United
States.

War Hawks

The New York Times columnist William Safire is an example
of the pro-Bush war hawks who have chosen to hunker down in the ideological
rubble of Bushs strategy. We should keep in mind our historic bet: that given
their freedom from a savage tyrant, the three groups that make up Iraq could,
with our help, create a rudimentary democracy that would turn the tide against
terrorism, Safire wrote in an April 7 column.

But that notion of a U.S.-nurtured democracy somehow
turning the tide against terrorism is among the casualties of the Iraqi
uprising. It should now be obvious that the U.S.-led occupation is hated by too
many Iraqis, who are ready to fight and die, for Iraq ever to submit to a U.S.
formula for a future government.

These Iraqis have made clear that the peaceful conditions
needed for electoral preparations dont  and wont  exist while the occupation
continues. Imagine the fate of some poor U.S.-financed canvasser, clipboard in
hand, walking through the slums of Sadr City trying to compile a voting list and
asking for everyones names and addresses.

Bushs historic bet in Iraq assumed incorrectly that the
U.S.-led invasion would be broadly tolerated by the Iraqi people. A little more
than a year ago, senior Bush administration officials, such as Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, assured the American people that
the U.S. troops would be welcomed by thankful Iraqis with open arms and flowers.
The administration expected that civic order would be quickly restored and U.S.
troop levels could be reduced to about 30,000 within months.

Less optimistic military experts, such as Gen. Eric
Shinseki who foresaw the need of several hundred thousand soldiers, were
ridiculed by the likes of Wolfowitz, who said Shinsekis estimate was way off
the mark. Today, a year after the invasion, U.S. troop levels are about 135,000
and U.S. commanders are considering a request for more soldiers.

Bushs historic bet also held that with Saddam Hussein
gone, Iraqis would let the U.S. occupiers elevate pro-U.S. Iraqis to leadership
posts, privatize Iraqi industries, sell oil rights to international
corporations, draft a constitution and eventually hold elections intended to
sanction the post-invasion status quo.

Phase Two of this historic bet foresaw the U.S. success
in Iraq toppling the first of many anti-American dominoes across the Middle
East. More pragmatic experts, such as former National Security Adviser Brent
Scowcroft, warned that these ambitious goals reflected a naivete about the
region and could prove counterproductive.

Iraqi Resistance

Indeed, Bushs scheme did go awry almost from the start.
After the invasion was launched on March 19, 2003, Iraqi resistance was fiercer
than expected. Some American supply columns were ambushed in towns like
Nasiriyah that were expected to be friendly. In some battles, Iraqi troops
charged into the face of devastating American firepower and were mowed down.

Meanwhile, special U.S. units searching for weapons of mass
destruction didnt find any, undercutting Bushs principal justification for war
and further enflaming Arab and world opinion. Even as U.S. troops progressed
toward Baghdad, some U.S. military experts were voicing alarm at the Bush
administrations tendency to mix wishful thinking with a flawed military
strategy. [For details, see Consortiumnews.coms Bay
of Pigs Meets Black Hawk Down.]

U.S. public optimism about the war was revived when U.S.
troops captured Baghdad and toppled Saddam Husseins statue on April 9, 2003.
But the stretched-thin U.S. forces found themselves confronting looting and
chaos. In some restless cities, such as Fallujah, U.S. troops fired into crowds
of demonstrators, killing civilians and stoking the beginnings of a resistance.

Bush declared the end of major combat on May 1, 2003, after
donning a flight suit and landing on the aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Abraham
Lincoln. But a guerrilla war in Iraq was soon underway. Within months, the
number of U.S. soldiers killed during the occupation exceeded the 138 killed
during the invasion. The number of U.S. dead is now over 600 and climbing
rapidly. [For more details about Bush's flight-suit miscalculation, see
Consortiumnews.com's "Bush's
Iraqi Albatross."]

On the political front, the hand-picked members of the
Iraqi Governing Council were widely viewed as quislings who survived only
under the protection of the U.S. military. Meanwhile, terrorists slipped into
central Iraq and carried out suicide bombings, including the destruction of the
United Nations headquarters in Baghdad.

Rather than see these setbacks as warning signs, the Bush
administration continued to believe its own P.R. about progress. So, instead of
using existing food ration lists as voting rolls for quick elections of Iraqi
leaders who could claim some popular support, U.S. officials dawdled, insisting
on a better national voting list, a fine-tuned interim constitution and then
elections.

The Sovereignty Scam

Those promises of Iraqi national elections now continue to
recede, even as Washington says it will turn over sovereignty to Iraqis on
June 30. Rather than making progress on preparations for elections, U.S. troops
and coalition allies are battling Iraqi insurgents in cities all over the
country.

Even more troubling to U.S. policymakers, the insurgency
appears to have taken deeper root among the population, with many Iraqis working
as merchants or laborers during the day with their guns ready to fight the
Americans. In addition, Sunnis and Shiites  normally bitter rivals  have begun
to cooperate in attacks on coalition troops, according to recent press reports.
Even in Sunni towns, portraits of Shiite cleric Sadr are popping up, the Arab
media has reported.

While the Bush administration continues to insist that the
uprising reflects the discontent of only a small number of Iraqis, U.S.
intelligence has concluded that, to the contrary, the Shiite uprising is
broad-based, the New York Times reported. Intelligence officials now say that
there is evidence that the insurgency goes beyond Mr. Sadr and his militia, and
that a much larger number of Shiites have turned against the American-led
occupation, correspondent James Risen wrote. [NYT, April 8, 2004]

The much-touted hand-over of sovereignty is also certain
to disappoint the Iraqis since very little will change. Instead of getting
orders from U.S. political chief, Paul Bremer, the new Iraqi leaders will get
their instructions from a U.S. ambassador housed in the largest U.S. embassy in
the world. As for their sovereignty, the Iraqis wont even have the power to
order occupation troops out of the country.

The June 30 ceremonies appear more targeted at U.S. public
opinion than the Iraqi people. But the political risk to the Bush administration
could grow when Americans see continued U.S. casualties and begin to understand
that the hand-over of power in Iraq was more a shell game than real.

The sovereignty shell game in Iraq also is sure to have
its counterpart in the United States. Team Bush will keep shifting the
arguments, sliding away some claims that are disproved, replacing them with
others, all the while maintaining a steady patter of insults against critics.

Safire: Vietnam to Iraq

The domestic propaganda strategy is another echo of
Vietnam, with columnist Safire personifying the common tactics used on the home
front of both wars.

As a White House speechwriter during the Nixon
administration, Safire crafted some of Vice President Spiro Agnews classic
slams against Vietnam War critics, such as the phrase nattering nabobs of
negativism. Now Safire is doing the same from his perch on the New York Times
editorial page, accusing anyone who differs with Bushs war strategy of
effectively aiding and abetting the enemy.

Do the apostles of retreat realize how their defeatism,
magnified by Arab media, bolsters the morale of the insurgents and increases the
nervousness of the waverers? Safire wrote on April 7. Does our
coulda-woulda-shoulda crowd consider how it dismays the majority of Iraqis
wondering if they can count on our continued presence as they feel their way to
freedom?

Rather than applying a dose of realism to Bushs historic
bet, Safire and other Bush defenders are still trying to marginalize
dissenters, a continuation of a public relations strategy that has been employed
since the pre-war buildup in fall 2002. But the harrowing pictures from Iraq and
the growing list of casualties are making Bush's P.R. strategy harder to
enforce.

More and more Americans are skeptical of Bush's "historic
bet" and are viewing him as a sort of gambling addict sliding more and more
chips onto the table while holding a losing hand. As any experienced gambler
knows, there is a name for someone who doesnt know when to fold a bad hand and
pull back from the table: sucker.

But Bush isn't just betting the kids college fund. Hes
risking the lives of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi citizens. Hes also running the
risk that his gamble will increase U.S. vulnerability to terrorism, not lessen
it.

Like an amateur poker player in too deep, George W. Bush
cant seem to see any alternative but to go in deeper. In November, the American
people will have to decide whether to escort Bush from the table or to give him
a whole new pile of chips.